


Excess of Joy

by Polly_Lynn



Category: Castle
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Holidays, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 12:07:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,075
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17161715
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Polly_Lynn/pseuds/Polly_Lynn
Summary: “He leads her inside. He kisses her by the tree, and almost everything—the whole evening long—is wonderful.”





	Excess of Joy

**Author's Note:**

> A Secret Santa (5 x 09) post ep, and I guess another last thing.

You  

"Excess of joy

is harder to bear

than any amount of sorrow."

— Honore de Balzac

* * *

 

 

Almost everything is wonderful.

She arrives on his doorstep holding her breath, and it turns out he was just on his way to arrive on hers. He’s holding his breath, too, and that sets the stage. The two of them smile hard at each other until Martha calls out drily from the depths of the loft. 

_Oh, for God’s sake, Richard. Invite the girl in._

And he does. He leads her inside. He kisses her by the tree, and almost everything—the whole evening long—is wonderful. 

The loft itself is, unquestionably. His version of Christmas is on a scale completely different from the one she’s used to. The one she _was_ used to. The tree and the real evergreen garlands. The one million lights and the breathtaking detail of the village that sits snug inside the curve of his model railroad. 

It’s all so grand that there’s no knot she has to swallow past when he hands her a cut crystal punch glass of the glögg. There’s no painful, insistent reminder of any particular thing of her own welling up, because it seems so entirely different. 

And by the time she realizes that it really _isn’t_ different—by the time she sees the faded paper chains, taped and stapled back together a hundred times over, and the crumbling cookie angel in among the dazzling crystal ornaments and the fresh cut this and that, all of it imported from the back of beyond—she finds her own memories bubbling up on a quiet tide of real joy. 

The memories rise in her, and some she keeps to herself, because it’s wonderful—almost all of it is—but it’s hard, too, and some of them are just for her right now. Others, she tucks away just for the moment, though. She catches him catching her smiling and she shakes her head. _Tell you later_ , she says with the lift of her eyebrows and the duck of her cheek into his shoulder. And he says _Later_ with a heated glance and the brush of his lips over her hair. 

And there are some she shares out loud. That’s . . .  work. It’s hard, aching work to break the long habit of silence—the long habit of tamping down memory—but she manages it. She makes Martha laugh and Alexis’s eyes go wide with funny stories about her dad, her mom. Funny stories about the three of them, and almost every single thing about this is wonderful. 

* * *

There’s something on his mind. That’s the _almost._ It’s muted, whatever it is. It’s buried beneath the joy he practically radiates all evening long, but once the word drops into her head— _almost_ —she knows it’s been there since the two of them smiled hard at each other from opposite sides of the threshold. She knows it’s been there all along.

It niggles at the back of her own mind. At the edges of her heart, really, because she loves the lights and the warmth and him. Because her sides are sore from laughing, and maybe there’s no knot she has to swallow past. Maybe every thing of theirs that reminds her of something of her own comes on a quiet tide of joy, but it’s hard, too. It’s work, and knowing that his Christmas cheer is somehow not quite 100% unadulterated . . . niggles.

She wants to ask him about it. Or maybe it’s the glögg that wants to ask. Maybe it’s the color the heady, aromatic drink puts in her cheeks. The way Alexis teases and scolds him and the way Martha eggs her on. Maybe it’s the way she— _Kate_ , most definitely Kate this evening—feels herself almost unfolding. Maybe it’s everything, all heaped together like gifts under the tree, that keeps a half-formed question on her lips through dinner. Through desert and yet more glögg as they sprawl around the tree.

Or maybe it’s nothing. The glögg is fickle, and it whispers that in her ear, too. It whispers that maybe she’s imagining this _something_.Maybe she’sconjuring it up out of her own issues.

She leans into his body, and _nothing_ sounds convincing. She stretches her legs out and tucks her toes under the arm of the couch, and even with her back to his chest, she can _feel_ him smiling.

“We _agreed_ : No presents,” he says for the hundredth time. They’re opening presents—a few for each of the three of them—and Martha and Alexis have been needling him mercilessly over the fact that there’s nothing for her. “ _I_ agreed. Under _duress_!” 

“ _Annnnnndddd_ that’s all I need to know about that!”

Alexis holds up a hand. She wrinkles her nose, but she’s laughing. Martha’s laughing, and Kate feels the arm around her waist tighten. She feels a breath of a kiss in her hair, and for a second, she wonders. She tips her head back to study his face and wonders if the stupid present thing is all it is. If he really did get her something. Or he really didn’t, and that’s all that’s on his mind. The awkwardness of it. 

He shakes his head, though. He looks down and smiles all the way to the crinkles at the corners of his eyes. “I agreed,” he says, low and meant just for her, so that’s not it.

It’s not the stupid present thing, but there’s something on his mind.

* * *

Martha and Alexis go. There’s some back and forth over it. It’s raucous and rough between him and his mother, even as he helps her fill a couple of huge thermoses with glögg and pack a bagof cookies and nut cups and a hundred other sweet things for her caroling party. It’s low-voiced and tentative with Alexis. He teases her, then stops short when he sees how her face falls.

“Of course he’ll still want to go.” He presses the phone into her hand. “You can even blame me.”

“Oh, I will,” Alexis shoots back with more than a flash of his own wickedness. It’s short-lived, though. Kate feels the weight of two gazes, flicking her way. Three with Martha not yet out the door. She’s studying the tree. Very pointedly studying the tree, but Alexis lowers her voice anyway. “It’s really ok?”

“It’s really ok,” he answers, just as low. 

It might not be, though. There’s a hesitation, a hitch in his breath so minute that Alexis doesn’t seem to notice—or decides not to notice, maybe, because that’s how kids are. Either way, she thanks him in a happy rush over her shoulder. She dashes for the stairs, and Kate hears the name _Max_ tumbling through a long string of things.

“Is it?”

She’s wondering aloud, really. Interrogating a snowman and a crumbling tin toy soldier that’s missing most of its face, trying to determine if this might be the _something_ that won’t quit this stupid niggling, but he’s there, suddenly. He’s sliding his arms around her waist and turning her sideways, so they’re both bathed in the mellow light of the tree.

“Is it really ok?” she asks, bold at last. She turns her face up toward his, and just _asks_.

“Yeah,” he tells her, easy and immediate. “It really is.”

He smiles down at her, and it’s unclouded. Almost entirely unclouded, and she’s sure it’s not that either. It’s not that Martha and Alexis have gone. But it’s not nothing, either.

* * *

“You’re ruining Christmas,” he scowls at her as she heaps another stack of plates on the counter the exact second he’s finished slotting the last of the previous stack in the dishwasher. “You’re absolutely ruining it, Beckett.”

“And how am I doing that?” She laughs and spins away as he tries to grab her. She dances to the far side of the breakfast bar.

“You’re cleaning.” He holds up a plate in one hand, a mug with a sticky stream of dried chocolate snaking down one side of it. “You’re making _me_ clean.”

“I’m not _making_ you do anything!”She feels the warmth of the gas fire at her back as she gathers up cloth napkins in a pile at one end of the table. She smiles at the twinkling play of lights over her skin as she moves to the living room and pulls dangling gift tags and silvery paper from among the haphazard piles of open gifts. She takes a sentimental moment to trace the slant of his handwriting, before she sweeps the odds and ends into a stray box from under the tree. “I told you it’s the least I can—”

“It’s not,” he cuts in. It’s sudden and sharp, and he’s somehow right there. He’s across the room taking the box from her hand, none too gently. “There’s no _least_ . . .”

He breaks off, and she feels a weird, messed up surge of triumph that she doesn’t quite understand. Not right away, but she looks down at her empty hands, and it’s undeniably triumph, even though she’s casting about for some kind of response. “Castle, I just—” 

“No.” He runs roughshod over her words again, even though he’s at a loss, too. Even though it turns out he’s at just as much of a loss. “There’s no _just_ on Christmas, Beckett.”

He makes it into a grumble. Something a little theatrical, as he bumps her hip with his own and tries to push past her on his way back toward the kitchen. Trying to push past _it_ —this stupid, not nothing _almost_ —and she snags his elbow. She holds tight.

“What, then?” She takes the stupid box from him. She casts it aside and it tips over on to the coffee table. “What?”

“What, what?” He reaches toward the spill of silver paper, then thinks better of it. His fingers curl into an awkward fist. “Nothing what.” He tips himself toward her and lands a kiss on her cheek. “Really nothing.”

“Doesn’t feel like it.” She feels her skin blush hot beneath his lips. She grumbles, too. Something a little theatrical, even though she doesn’t want it to be. Her fingers untangle from the hold she still has on his sleeve. She ducks her head and one shoulder. She turns to go, even though words keep rising up to fix them both in the moment. To keep them grappling with whatever it is. “Feels like . . .”

“Something. It feels like something.” He takes her by the hips, a rough gesture of surrender. “I know it does, but Kate . . . it’s not. It’s just me being . . . greedy.”

“Greedy,” she echoes. She feels her brows draw in. She feels the smile so recently meeting his die away. She feels herself shrinking. Hurt flaring like a terrible shield. “Greedy for—?”

“She said you didn’t have a family,” he blurts. “Gates. I thought she was just being . . . Gates. Or maybe it was me.” The story keeps rushing out of him. His forehead knocks into hers, and he holds her there. He holds them both there, even though she can tell he’s panicking. Even though she sees—clearly for once—his own defenses rising. “I thought maybe she was punishing you for me being there all the time, but she said . . .”

“I don’t have a family.” The words sound awful. They’re a hollow, belated echo, and they sound just awful. “She told you, and then I . . .”

“You explained.” He pulls her down to the couch with him. He pulls her into his body and winds his arms around her so she knows he means it. So she knows that it really is almost nothing. Almost. “You explained how important it is. _Your_ tradition. And then you came here anyway, and it’s just me being . . . too much.” 

“It’s not.” It’s an odd thing to pick out of the chaos of it. She knows that even as she whispers it against the rough of his cheek. “You’re not . . .”

She closes her eyes. She sees so many of her own fears, past and present, absolutely clearly in the unexpected moment. So much of what’s held her back for so long. She sees the afterimage of a million tiny lights on the back of her eyelids and the memories she wants to whisper to him in the dark.

“You’re not too much.” She opens her eyes. She sees him and the truth, whole and unqualified, comes tumbling out. “You. Family. It’s not too much.” 

**Author's Note:**

> It’s weird that I thought the nothing moment of “Crystal Bones” would be a couple hundred words, and this might be longer. But it didn’t feel genuine for Kate to say more than she does here, and the internal monologue got tedious. 


End file.
